Yesterday I wanted to google for a cartoon in order to show it to my wife. I joked that the keywords would probably get me on a watch list. My wife said I was a fool to use those search terms. Did I need to “prove” myself by googing those terms? When I said that if I stopped looking for information using those terms, I was already accepting that the police state is real. She said, thanks for making it harder for me, should I want to visit the United States again.

Needless to say, the argument was a bit longer and a perfect Saturday was ruined with a late night discussion about the current state of the world surveillance society.

AlexSchroeder Absolutely. The debate is about renegotiating our values. The problem with a surveillance society, of course, is that debate concerning the surveillance itself can be problematic. I also wanted to point out that chilling effects happen on a very personal level, long before we can talk about censorship or self-censorship.

Akiyama The UK government is going to require everyone to “opt-in” to be able to access porn on the internet. Which I think is a good idea in theory, but what worries me is that it seems that if you don’t opt-in it’s not just porn that is going to be blocked but all manner of other stuff too.